Let's call his1 Mark, His2 Robert. Was Mark HAM when he died? Is Robert HAM when his life is saved? Is the One also HAM? If so, can we call him Herbert? Are any of the people involved famous? Is it an object? A discovery? A machine? Were the people whose life was wasted made irrelevant? Are their jobs relevant? Was a job made obsolete by "it"? Is superstition involved? Religion? Science? Progress?

Let's call his1 Mark, His2 Robert. Sure, BTW this is true story Was Mark HAM when he died? Yes Is Robert HAM when his life is saved? Yes Is the One also HAM? Yes If so, can we call him Herbert? YesAre any of the people involved famous? Yes, to some degree Is it an object? No A discovery? Yesish A machine? Were the people whose life was wasted made irrelevant? No Are their jobs relevant? Yes Was a job made obsolete by "it"? No Is superstition involved? Religion? Science? This Progress? so, this

Did it kill Mark? Did Mark make the discoverish? Science: medical science? Radiation? Biology? Chemistry? Space? Rocket science? Did this happen in the 19th century? 20th? 21st? Before the 19th? Was Herbert's life changed for the better? Worse? Just different?

Did it kill Mark? No Did Mark make the discoverish? Yope Science: medical science? Radiation? Biology? Chemistry? Space? Rocket science? No>all Did this happen in the 19th century? 20th? 21st? Before the 19th? Yes Was Herbert's life changed for the better? Probably this Worse? Just different?

Is Mark a mathematician? Yes Is Robert? YesISH Is Herbert? Yes Are the "life-wasted"s? Almost certainly, most are

Is a specific mathematical law relevant? Theorem? Yes Is a specific branch of mathematics relevant? Yes If so, algebra? Geometry? Statistics? Trigonometry? Calculus? None of these is really the best classification, but there is a specific category for this

Is the branch of mathematics an advanced one? "advanced" is quite ambiguous. Every branch has "advanced" parts. The branch is quite well-known, though, if not among the general public, then among 100% of mathematicians, as well as interested middle/high school students Would it be learned in college? This High school? In parts, possibly Younger? Parts, definitely

Was Herbert the one who proved it beyond a doubt? Yes, not directly though Did Mark come up with the entire hypothesis? The big hypothesis in question, yes Was it assumed to be correct, even before it was confirmed? Not quite sure how to answer; this is quite irrelevant. No decent mathematician likes to assume things

Did Robert's life being saved assist in the formin of the hypothtesis? No The proof? Yope Was his life saved from murder? Accident? Suicide? This Execution? Would he have died by [LTPF list of ways to die]? irrelevant method of suicide

Was the object a consequence of the proof? Or the hypothesis? Was it a book? Or paper? Relevant why Robert was considering suicide? Did he find life meaningless? Did the object provide new meaning to his life? Did he decide to become a mathematician instead of killing himself?

Was the object a consequence of the proof? Same FA... yes Or the hypothesis? Was it a book? Or paper? This Relevant why Robert was considering suicide? No Did he find life meaningless? Did the object provide new meaning to his life? Yes Did he decide to become a mathematician instead of killing himself? Assume yes

Did Robert decide to try and prove the hypothesis true? No, at least not when he changed his mind about suicide Did he find (not discover, but learn about) the hypothesis? No, he was aware of its existence, but he found something else about it And that's what saved him? Yes

So Mark came up with a hypothesis, and someone make a proof of it. Robert, who was contemplating suicide, found a flaw in the proof, and this gave his life meaning. Many mathematicians wasted their lives trying to find a proof without a flaw, which Herbert eventually did.

So Mark came up with a hypothesis, and someone make a proof of it. Robert, who was contemplating suicide, found a flaw in the proof, and this gave his life meaning. Many mathematicians wasted their lives trying to find a proof without a flaw, which Herbert eventually did.

Is this sequence of events correct? Yes Is there still more to find? The hypothesis!

Is the hypothesis related to simple operations (addition, subraction, etc.)? Yes Exponents? Yes Logarithms? Order of operations? ??? could you clarify? Division by zero? Anything involving zero? Well, you can make anything involve zero; probably no

Yes, and this should be enough for the ~!@#$%^&*()_+ SPOILER =-0987654321` Fermat wrote down his famous "theorem," which it was assumed to be, in the margin of a book, saying that he had a simple proof. In the 1800s, Ernst Kummer apparently proved the theorem. This part of the story is sketchy, but a young man named Paul Wolfkehl was planning to commit suicide, and decided to spend his last night in the library. There, he stumbled upon Kummer's paper and found a mistake. ... Later, Wolfskehl became an industrial businessman. When he became rich, he commissioned a million-Mark prize to the person who would prove the theorem. So many fake or false proofs were sent in over the next 100 years that preprinted cards were sent in with the words "Dear Sir: The first error in your proof of Fermat's Theorem is on page __ line __." Then, in the 1990s, British mathematician Andrew Wiles proved the Taniyama-Shimura Conjecture, which had earlier been shown to imply Fermat's Theorem.

"Seek a man," the title of this puzzle, rearranges to "namesake." In fact, Fermat was born in 1601.